Anti-Poiseuille flow in neutral graphene

Abstract

Hydrodynamic flow of charge carriers in graphene is an energy flow unlike the usual mass flow in conventional fluids. In neutral graphene, the energy flow is decoupled from the electric current, making it difficult to observe the hydrodynamic effects and measure the viscosity of the electronic fluid by means of electric current measurements. In particular, we show that the hallmark Poiseuille flow in a narrow channel cannot be driven by the electric field irrespective of boundary conditions at the channel edges. Nevertheless one can observe nonuniform current densities similarly to the case of the well-known ballistic-diffusive crossover. The standard diffusive behavior with the uniform current density across the channel is achieved under the assumptions of specular scattering on the channel boundaries. This flow can also be made nonuniform by applying weak magnetic fields. In this case, the curvature of the current density profile is determined by the quasiparticle recombination processes dominated by the disorder-assisted electron-phonon scattering -- the so-called supercollisions.